Side Stories

The "Suggestions for Missions and Storylines" thread has gotten long and a bit unwieldy...possibly even intimidating.

So this thread is for the plotting of side stories, outside or only loosely connected to the main story. These should be no more than six missions in length (exceptions can be made), and may be one-off missions if they're a particularly interesting concept.

When suggesting story concepts, the level of detail should at least include an indication of divides between missions, some suggestion of which characters may be involved (and basic descriptions of any new characters), some indication of what type of planet each stop should be at, and any particular twists or jokes you'd like included. Writers are, of course, welcome to present considerably more detail on any of the above points, up to and including complete mission texts.

If you present an idea but don't wish to develop it further yourself, please indicate that so someone else can give it a go guilt-free.

Small? Well, as far as I can tell this is my original idea, it's something akin to a mission with a 1% chance of happening, and what it does it kind of like the Auroran Drop Bear, except with engine trouble. Let's see if I can find that desc...

And then the mission itself takes away some money for the repairs. I dunno if this is what you're looking for, but your welcome to incorporate it into the TC.

Yeah, something like that or a random bar fight that doesn't lead to anything more might be fun.

But I was more thinking of arcs designed to bring various story elements into focus which can't fit easily into the main tale, such as the Companion's Guild.

Okay, thought on Mal's earliest involvement with the Companion Guild. Short series of missions from Core bars offering transport of Companion Guild equipment to the outer Core worlds, which lead up to passenger transport of Companions themselves (extremely indignant about Ji.) Sort of like the GalPost missions. It does just the basics to establish Mal as a credible and respectable transport ship. Maybe one mission with a very low chance on a world where Mal's dropped off a fancy lady, where Mal would assert a bit of chivalry towards a disreputable or arrogant snotnose (like in Shindig,) and find himself at barrel's end, getting Mytych and Fritz to bail him out. Perhaps he might even save the lady (though vowing never to again.)

What do you guys think?

Gonna use this post to collect side stories mentioned elsewhere but not in the mod yet, and/or not complete. If we had a wiki I'd just edit a page there with this stuff, rather than re-collecting it every few months like this.....

-The Peggy Stewart string (M/S thread page 22, for starters)
-A Morrigan string from Trasker's End (optional depending on player choices)
-Everything here. Although one bit of it has been used, and another bit will be in Part 2 with the new timeline.

Story hooks from planet descriptions which haven't been used. Some of these should be major, some should be minor.
-The abandoned monastery on Meteora
-The mysteriously vanishing supply shipments to Ferris
-The Pike/Patience rivalry
-More Adventures With Monty™, including the botched Beylix job.
-The caverns of Murdoch
-Bribery on Dauphin
-The Vishnu-worshiping sect on Lhasa (related to the Hands of Blue mercenaries?)
-The Asianness of Xin Shanghai. It doesn't feel special right now.
-The Medical center on Greenleaf
-Barnum or Bailey (pick a side!)

Reaver Space. Obviously nothing Miranda-ish, but *some* storyline should force the player into the outskirts of Reaver space. Perhaps relating to those old mining stations in Xhao-Leverson. Or as-yet-unadded planets down thataway.

-I don't think this is used yet.

Feel free to use any of the established characters in side stories. We can control when they are presented easily enough by using a mission bit to represent the eligibility of each character to appear in a story. If everyone relevant is around, the mission is available; if not, it isn't.

I'm a little overwhelmed with finals at the moment, but I'll write some samples up next week and see what you guys think.

GunRunner, I'm looking at the Peggy Stewart storyline now. Actually, I'm not sure why we're calling it that, because I don't see more than a passing reference to the ship anywhere.

Since the original purpose of that side story was to reunite Mal with his gun, it serves little purpose without that. But it's got enough character moments that I'd like to keep it in some form.

I'm thinking about alternatives to the gun which could proceed along similar lines. Presumably the package isn't from Zoe, but maybe someone else Mal knows? And the sniper attack is too sudden not to tie into something larger....but, to avoid another monstrosity of a storyline, perhaps that something is primarily linked to the other character, and at this stage Mal is only a peripheral player. It could be elaborated on in Part 2.

Need some brainstorming here.

So:
1) Ship blows a gasket and has to limp back to Shobe. Since this is unrelated to the rest, it could even be an independent one-time deal. Or is it unrelated?
2) Mal gets a mysterious box in the mail. (Not a dead guy.) It includes a message to meet <someone> on <some planet>.
3) Mal gets there, meets the person, and a sniper takes a shot. Mal + friend (?) escape unharmed.

So, all we need is the who's and the why's.

Origionaly that was ment to push the story along so in hinsight it does seem kinda abrupt.

But including the limping back to Shobe would be good as an indipendet storyline would be good as well.

The Peggy Stewart and crew were just disposable characters.

I'll see if I can whip something up tonight, then.

Concept: If we still want the Jade Jaguars to eventually turn out a bit on the evil side, Mal could tumble to them by discovering a book on <insert evil subject here>, then closing it and finding an ornamental etching of a green stone cat on the cover.

This would riff on a similar discovery in a second-season episode of Angel.

Concept: A side-string of perhaps five or six missions involving Barnum versus Bailey, with a pair calling themselves the Ringling Sisters attempting to take both of the Bs down.

All right, project is done, school's out, and I've had a few days to unwind from all that. Time to start writing again!

We currently have maybe five side stories. Before Part 1 is released I want at least 15, of at least 2 missions each; some of those should stretch to as many as 4 or 5 missions.

It would take me quite a while to write that many myself. So here's the plan. If you're willing to put in some writing for a story, post here and include a basic concept. (One sentence is fine.) I'll work with you to expand it to an outline; you give me a draft; I polish it. I feel most of the best descs we've gotten so far have come about from one person conceiving an idea and another fleshing it out, so hopefully this will work well.

Hopefully enough people are still checking the board that something actually happens here.

Concept: Mal is hired to transport a scientist looking to put together the Church of Sol. Basically he's organizing a quest to identify which of the many stars in the night sky is orbiting the homeworld. This information may be known to some, but is kept confidential if so.

Why a Church? Because that gets him a bigger tax break than calling it a research group.

I have a dialog in mind calling out the extreme unlikeliness of a 9-star system arranged in the *exact* manner necessary to maintain extensive habitability zones among them, and how this is proof of something very profound (although no one's sure what). I'd like to write that one, but ideas and additions from others are welcome to flesh this out.

The target is three major missions, plus the possibility of recurring minor missions and maybe a follow-up down the road.